


The Ryan Effect

by innie



Category: Possession (2008)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 17:42:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2701628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One meeting with Ryan turned everybody's lives around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ryan Effect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redcandle17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/gifts).



> My thanks to htbthomas for the speedy and incisive betas!

The first time he met her, he smelled coffee on her breath and stale smoke in her hair, the workaday fragrances of her startling in the sterile concrete confines of his holding cell. He opened his eyes - he'd been replaying all of it in his mind, how the hammer had jumped into his hand just when Sully started going too far, trying to prove he was cock of the walk - and saw her.

There was something about her face that suggested it was made to be serious, that getting her to put on a smile would be an effort. He didn't think he'd bother. Those eyes were already judging him, cataloging the lumps in his left cheek where Sully or one of the other guys got a good hit in, and she nodded like it was just her luck she got landed with him as a client. Fuck her, anyway.

He wasn't innocent, but he wasn't an animal either - Sully had asked for it, and she didn't even want to hear his reasons.

Seriously, fuck her.

*

The second time they met was two days later, and she clicked into the holding cell on her spindly high heels, looking all lit up and wearing some kind of flowery perfume. He knew what she would say before she said it - "I just met with your brother" - because he recognized the Ryan Effect. One meeting with Ryan turned everybody's lives around, made them better, and it had even worked for him, because now that she'd met Ryan, she was eager to do her best to get him out of jail.

He thought _fuck you_ all the same, even if he didn't let himself say it. He wondered if she wanted _Ryan_ to fuck her. He bet she'd be sweet, and tight, and all little moans, turning Ryan's name into an opera, even if Ryan was as vanilla as he'd always seemed.

Roman wished she still smelled like him, like cigarettes and caffeine, and not whatever she thought his brother wanted. He was the one on trial, but it was Ryan who mattered. Ryan would stand up for him in court and say that yeah, he had a temper but he didn't have a bad bone in his body, that as long as he could live under his big brother's watchful eye, he'd be a productive member of society, a model fucking citizen.

He tuned her and her courtroom strategy out. He bit at his tender lip, his teeth feeling like needles in the swollen flesh, until it gave, and he swallowed the hot rush of blood that flooded his mouth.

"Roman," she said, like she'd been saying it for days and was worn out by him. "Roman, are you hearing me? You need to look presentable for your court appearance. No tattoos showing, hair combed."

Not a word about what he'd done or why he'd done it, not a moment to explain that hearing Sully laugh about how hot his stepdaughters were brought back the touch of Dad's heavy hand on his neck.

Not a word about any of that. It was all about appearances.

Let Ryan ride in and save the day; it was what he did best.

*

She wasn't nearly as wild as she liked to think she was - he saw clear through her whenever she came to Ryan's apartment. She'd have her hair pulled back in a little librarian bun, but it never came down. Her jewelry was small and classy, her clothes were prim. She was so fucking _beige_ it made him sick.

Between her and Ryan, that bed probably saw no more than some standard missionary, breathless whispers of "I love you," and a lot of looking deep into each other's eyes. He heard them through the wall and when he took himself in hand just to give himself something to do in this shitty apartment where he didn't even have a bed, her little fucking sighs kept interrupting his rhythm.

Well, there was no law saying he had to stay there, was there? Not when his shitty lawyer kept coming over and Ryan fluttered like a fifties housewife around the apartment, cooking her elaborate dinners and making sure there were fresh flowers on the coffee table. It really had been an accident the first time he'd kicked them over – a man had a right to put his feet up and relax at the end of a long day.

And she never seemed to appreciate any of it, to pause and smell the perfumed roses Ryan had bought, or to wonder where they were getting the money to buy her fucking capons. She just took those things as her due. Ryan deserved better.

*

So he was the thing messing up her perfect life, apparently. It wasn't enough that he'd stayed away from their stupid wedding – Casey had been so very sweet to fuck that night – or that she was the one who'd gotten him out of jail to stifle under Ryan's supervision.

_I want him gone._

It wasn't like he was sticking around for his health.

*

Ryan was lying in the bed next to his, looking small and broken. He wasn't the student council president or Dad's golden boy or Jess's pussy-whipped husband, lying in that bed; he was Roman's brother, the first and only person Roman could ever remember loving. No one else had any right to him.

He snarled at the nurses who came in to check on them for touching Ryan with impersonal hands. It wasn't their life on the line when they handled him like dead weight, shifting him to make the bed around him, talking like it didn't matter if he could hear them. 

Ryan drained of all his strength was barely Ryan. He was just a guy, someone Roman would never have noticed. Hell, _he'd_ make a better Ryan than Ryan could right now.

*

Being Ryan got his heart rate down, lightened the weight on his shoulders. The taste of clay on his tongue as Jess's sculpted head took shape under his fingers was curiously grounding, as surprising as the fact that Ryan's talent had found its way to his hands. Jess said she was wary, but she came closer, craned her neck uncomplainingly to meet his eyes. Even the dog trotted up to him, tail wagging like they'd never snarled at each other. Casey was the only one whose smile was bitter and knowing, but he didn't give a flying fuck what she thought of the way he was mourning his brother.

It wasn't about getting Jess into bed. It was about her believing him, showing him what Ryan had had, what he could still make his way back to.

When Jess kissed him, she chased the taste of clay on his tongue.

*

He opened her up with careful fingers, aware that she had none of Casey's rangy strength, but the breath punched out of her lungs anyway. That pained gasp was electrifying – before he knew it, he had her on her hands and knees and he was shoving his way inside her, his teeth in her neck. She shuddered and rocked back against him when he lifted her, forcing her weight down. Her cunt was hot and swollen as he pounded into her, but she wasn't complaining. He'd never heard her scream before, but she did then, the name on her lips his.

"Ryan," she cried, but she drew his hand up from her tender clit to bite on his fingers, fingers that could never have been as smooth and cautious as his brother's.

"Jess," he said, his voice rough and deep, and she twisted, surprised, and caught his eye.

"No," she said, turning back around and pushing back against his body, trying to pick up the pace. 

She writhed like his cock was going to split her in two. One for each of him, he thought, and drove in deeper.

Ryan, he thought, is this what you wanted? He drilled up into the hot suction of her body – she was so small, so suited to Ryan – and got one hand around her throat, feeling all the words trapped within.

He didn't want to hear anything but her screams.

*

Jess had held his hand when they took Ryan's body off life support but kept angling her head away from him. It surprised him, how unpleasant the absence of her gaze was.

He pulled her into bed and put her on top of him. He teased her wet in the way she liked best, the rough pads of his fingers skating along her slick flesh, and watched her succumb, meeting his eyes at last. She was biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, and he soothed her lip away from her teeth with his thumb.

She latched onto his wrist, keeping his hand cupped around her cheek. "Tell me," she said.

The glass teardrop pendant he'd made for her swung in the air between them as she rocked on top of him.

"Tell me," she insisted, as if any words would change the fact that it was now just the two of them, that Ryan was irrevocably gone.

"You tell me," he challenged, but she didn't falter.

"I love you, Ryan," she said out loud.

I love you, Ryan, he said inside his head, then flipped them over and fucked her in earnest.


End file.
